A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  I have stared out of my window, trying to discover whether she ever leaves her room, but I’ve never seen her set foot on the street.

  As for me, I have a large, comfortable armchair and a green shade over the lamp whose glow envelopes me in warmth. The Inspector has left me with a huge packet of fine tobacco-and yet I cannot work. I read two or three pages only to discover that I haven’t understood a word. My eyes see the letters, but my brain refuses to make any sense of them. Absurd. As if my brain were posted: ‘No Trespassing.’ It is as if there were no room in my head for any other thought than the one: Clarimonda. I push my books away; I lean back deeply into my chair. I dream.

  Sunday, March 13

  This morning I watched a tiny drama while the servant was tidying my room. I was strolling in the corridor when I paused before a small window in which a large garden spider had her web.

  Madame Dubonnet will not have it removed because she believes spiders bring luck, and she’s had enough misfortunes in her house lately. Today, I saw a much smaller spider, a male, moving across the strong threads towards the middle of the web, but when his movements alerted the female, he drew back shyly to the edge of the web from which he made a second attempt to cross it. Finally, the female in the middle appeared attentive to his wooing, and stopped moving. The male tugged at a strand gently, then more strongly till the whole web shook. The female stayed motionless. The male moved quickly forward and the female received him quietly, calmly, giving herself over completely to his embraces. For a long minute, they hung together motionless at the center of the huge web.

  Then I saw the male slowly extricating himself, one leg over the other. It was as if he wanted tactfully to leave his companion alone in the dream of love, but as he started away, the female, overwhelmed by a wild life, was after him, hunting him ruthlessly. The male let himself drop from a thread; the female followed, and for a while the lovers hung there, imitating a piece of art. Then they fell to the window-sill where the male, summoning all his strength, tried again to escape. Too late. The female already had him in her powerful grip, and was carrying him back to the center of the web. There, the place that had just served as the couch for their lascivious embraces took on quite another aspect. The lover wriggled, trying to escape from the female’s wild embrace, but she was too much for him. It was not long before she had wrapped him completely in her thread, and he was helpless. Then she dug her sharp pincers into his body, and sucked full draughts of her young lover’s blood. Finally, she detached herself from the pitiful and unrecognizable shell of his body and threw it out of her web.

  So that is what love is like among these creatures. Well for me that I am not a spider.

  Monday, March 14

  I don’t look at my books any longer. I spend my days at the window. When it is dark, Clarimonda is no longer there, but if I close my eyes, I continue to see her.

  This journal has become something other than I intended. I’ve spoken about Madame Dubonnet, about the Inspector; about spiders and about Clarimonda. But I’ve said nothing about the discoveries I undertook to make. It can’t be helped.

  Tuesday, March 15 We have invented a strange game, Clarimonda and I. We play it all day long. I greet her; then she greets me. Then I tap my fingers on the windowpanes. The moment she sees me doing that, she too begins tapping. I wave to her; she waves back. I move my lips as if speaking to her; she does the same. I run my hand through my sleep-disheveled hair and instantly her hand is at her forehead. It is a child’s game, and we both laugh over it. Actually, she doesn’t laugh. She only smiles a gently contained smile. And I smile back in the same way.

  The game is not as trivial as it seems. It’s not as if we were grossly imitating each other-that would weary us both. Rather, we are communicating with each other. Sometimes, telepathically, it would seem, since Clarimonda follows my movements instantaneously almost before she has had time to see them. I find myself inventing new movements, or new combinations of movements, but each time she repeats them with disconcerting speed. Sometimes. I change the order of the movements to surprise her, making whole series of gestures as rapidly as possible; or I leave out some motions and weave in others, the way children play “Simon Says.” What is amazing is that Clarimonda never once makes a mistake, no matter how quickly I change gestures.

  That’s how I spend my days . . . hut never for a moment do I feel that I’m killing time. It seems, on the contrary, that never in my life have I been better occupied.

  Wednesday. March 16

  Isn’t it strange that it hasn’t occurred to me to put my relationship with Clarimonda on a more serious basis than these endless games. Last night, I thought about this . . . I can, of course, put on my hat and coat, walk down two flights of stairs, take five steps across the street and mount two flights to her door which is marked with a small sign that says “Clarimonda.” Clarimonda what? I don’t know. Something. Then I can knock and . . .

  Up to this point I imagine everything very clearly, but I cannot see what should happen next. I know that the door opens. But then I stand before it, looking into a dark void. Clarimonda doesn’t come. Nothing comes. Nothing is there, only the black, impenetrable dark.

  Sometimes, it seems to me that there can be no other Clarimonda but the one I see in the window; the one who plays gesture-games with me. I cannot imagine a Clarimonda wearing a hat, or a dress other than her black dress with the lilac motif. Nor can I imagine a Clarimonda without black gloves. The very notion that I might encounter Clarimonda somewhere in the streets or in a restaurant eating, drinking or chatting is so improbable that it makes me laugh.

  Sometimes I ask myself whether I love her. It’s impossible to say, since I have never loved before. However, if the feeling that I have for Clarimonda is really-love, then love is something entirely different from anything I have seen among my friends or read about in novels.

  It is hard for me to be sure of my feelings and harder still to think of anything that doesn’t relate to Clarimonda or, what is more important, to our game. Undeniably, it is our game that concerns me. Nothing else-and this is what I understand least of all.

  There is no doubt that I am drawn to Clarimonda, but with this attraction there is mingled another feeling, fear. No. That’s not it either. Say rather a vague apprehension in the presence of the unknown. And this anxiety has a strangely voluptuous quality so that I am at the same time drawn to her even as I am repelled by her. It is as if I were moving in giant circles around her, sometimes coming close, sometimes retreating . . . back and forth, back and forth.

  Once, I am sure of it, it will happen, and I will join her.

  Clarimonda sits at her window and spins her slender, eternally fine thread, making a strange cloth whose purpose I do not understand. I am amazed that she is able to keep from tangling her delicate thread. Hers is surely a remarkable design, containing mythical beasts and strange masks.

  Thursday, March 17

  I am curiously excited. I don’t talk to people any more. I barely say “hello” to Madame Dubonnet or to the servant. I hardly give myself time to eat. All I can do is sit at the window and play the game with Clarimonda. It is an enthralling game. Overwhelming.

  I have the feeling something will happen tomorrow.

  Friday, March 18 Yes. Yes. Something will happen today. I tell myself-as loudly as I can—that that’s why I am here. And yet, horribly enough, I am afraid. And in the fear that the same thing is going to happen to me as happened to my predecessors, there is strangely mingled another fear: a terror of Clarimonda. And I cannot separate the two fears.

  I am frightened. I want to scream.

  Six o’clock, evening I have my hat and coat on. Just a couple of words.

  At five o’clock, I was at the end of my strength. I’m perfectly aware now that there is a relationship between my despair and the “sixth hour” that was so significant in the previous weeks. I no longer laugh at the trick I played the Inspector.

  I was sitting at the
window, trying with all my might to stay in my chair, but the window kept drawing me. I had to resume the game with Clarimonda. And yet, the window horrified me. I saw the others hanging there: the Swiss traveling salesman, fat, with a thick neck and a grey stubbly beard; the thin artist; and the powerful police sergeant. I saw them, one after the other, hanging from the same hook, their mouths open, their tongues sticking out. And then, I saw myself among them.

  Oh, this unspeakable fear. It was clear to me that it was provoked as much by Clarimonda as by the cross-bar and the horrible hook. May she pardon me . . . but it is the truth. In my terror, I keep seeing the three men hanging there, their legs dragging on the floor.

  And yet, the fact is I had not felt the slightest desire to hang myself; nor was I afraid that I would want to do so. No, it was the window I feared; and Clarimonda. I was sure that something horrid was going to happen. Then I was overwhelmed by the need to go to the window-to stand before it. I had to . . .

  The telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and before I could hear a word, I screamed, “Come. Come at once.”

  It was as if my shrill cry had in that instant dissipated the shadows from my soul. I grew calm.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead. I drank a glass of water. Then I considered what I should say to the Inspector when he arrived. Finally, I went to the window. I waved and smiled. And Clarimonda too waved and smiled.

  Five minutes later, the Inspector was here. I told him that I was getting to the bottom of the matter, but I begged him not to question me just then. That very soon I would be in a position to make important revelations. Strangely enough, though I was lying to him. I myself had the feeling that I was telling the truth. Even now, against my will, I have that same conviction.

  The Inspector could not help noticing my agitated state of mind, especially since I apologized for my anguished cry over the telephone. Naturally, I tried to explain it to him, and yet I could not find a single reason to give for it. He said affectionately that there was no need ever to apologize to him; that he was always at my disposal; that that was his duty. It was better that he should come a dozen times to no effect rather than fail to be here when he was needed. He invited me to go out with him for the evening. It would be a distraction for me. It would do me good not to be alone for a while. I accepted the invitation though I was very reluctant to leave the room.

  Saturday, March 19

  We went to the Gaieté Rochechouart, La Cigale, and La Lune Rousse. The Inspector was right: It was good for me to get out and breathe the fresh air. At first, I had an uncomfortable feeling, as if I were doing something wrong; as if I were a deserter who had turned his back on the flag. But that soon went away. We drank a lot, laughed and chatted. This morning, when I went to my window, Clarimonda gave me what I thought was a look of reproach, though I may only have imagined it. How could she have known that I had gone out last night? In any case, the look lasted only for an instant, then she smiled again.

  We played the game all day long.

  Sunday, March 20

  Only one thing to record: we played the game.

  Monday, March 21

  We played the game-all day long.

  Tuesday, March 22

  Yes, the game. We played it again. And nothing else. Nothing at all.

  Sometimes I wonder what is happening to me? What is it I want? Where is all this leading? I know the answer: there is nothing else I want except what is happening. It is what I want . . . what I long for. This only.

  Clarimonda and I have spoken with each other in the course of the last few days, but very briefly; scarcely a word. Sometimes we moved our lips, but more often we just looked at each other with deep understanding.

  I was right about Clarimonda’s reproachful look because I went out with the Inspector last Friday. I asked her to forgive me. I said it was stupid of me, and spiteful to have gone. She forgave me, and I promised never to leave the window again. We kissed, pressing our lips against each of our windowpanes.

  Wednesday, March 23 I know now that I love Clarimonda. That she has entered into the very fiber of my being. It may be that the loves of other men are different. But does there exist one head, one ear, one hand that is exactly like hundreds of millions of others? There are always differences, and it must be so with love. My love is strange, I know that, but is it any the less lovely because of that? Besides, my love makes me happy.

  If only I were not so frightened. Sometimes my terror slumbers and I forget it for a few moments, then it wakes and does not leave me. The fear is like a poor mouse trying to escape the grip of a powerful serpent. Just wait a bit, poor sad terror. Very soon, the serpent love will devour you.

  Thursday, March 24

  I have made a discovery: I don’t play with Clarimonda. She plays with me.

  Last night, thinking as always about our game, I wrote down five new and intricate gesture patterns with which I intended to surprise Clarimonda today. I gave each gesture a number. Then I practiced the series, so I could do the motions as quickly as possible, forwards or backwards. Or sometimes only the even-numbered ones, sometimes the odd. Or the first and the last of the five patterns. It was tiring work, but it made me happy and seemed to bring Clarimonda closer to me. I practiced for hours until I got all the motions down pat, like clockwork.

  This morning, I went to the window. Clarimonda and I greeted each other, then our game began. Back and forth! It was incredible how quickly she understood what was to be done; how she kept pace with me.

  There was a knock at the door. It was the servant bringing me my shoes. I took them. On my way back to the window, my eye chanced to fall on the slip of paper on which I had noted my gesture patterns. It was then that I understood: in the game just finished, I had not made use of a single one of my patterns.

  I reeled back and had to hold on to the chair to keep from falling. It was unbelievable. I read the paper again-and again. It was still true: I had gone through a long series of gestures at the window, and not one of the patterns had been mine.

  I had the feeling, once more, that I was standing before Clarimonda’s wide open door, through which, though I stared. I could see nothing but a dark void. I knew, too, that if I chose to turn from that door now. I might be saved; and that I still had the power to leave. And yet, I did not leave–because I felt myself at the very edge of the mystery: as if I were holding the secret in my hands.

  “Paris! You will conquer Paris,” I thought. And in that instant, Paris was more powerful than Clarimonda.

  I don’t think about that any more. Now, I feel only love. Love, and a delicious terror.

  Still, the moment itself endowed me with strength. I read my notes again, engraving the gestures on my mind. Then I went back to the window only to become aware that there was not one of my patterns that I wanted to use. Standing there, it occurred to me to rub the side of my nose; instead I found myself pressing my lips to the windowpane. I tried to drum with my fingers on the window sill; instead, I brushed my fingers through my hair. And so I understood that it was not that Clarimonda did what I did. Rather, my gestures followed her lead and with such lightning rapidity that we seemed to be moving simultaneously. I, who had been so proud because I thought I had been influencing her, I was in fact being influenced by her. Her influence . . . so gentle . . . so delightful.

  I have tried another experiment. I clenched my hands and put them in my pockets firmly intending not to move them one bit. Clarimonda raised her hand and, smiling at me, made a scolding gesture with her finger. I did not budge, and yet I could feel how my right hand wished to leave my pocket. I shoved my fingers against the lining, but against my will, my hand left the pocket; my arm rose into the air. In my turn, I made a scolding gesture with my finger and smiled.

  It seemed to me that it was not I who was doing all this. It was a stranger whom I was watching.

  But, of course, I was mistaken. It was I making the gesture, and the person watching me was the stranger; that very same st
ranger who, not long ago, was so sure that he was on the edge of a great discovery. In any case, it was not I.

  Of what use to me is this discovery? I am here to do Clarimonda’s will. Clarimonda, whom I love with an anguished heart.

  Friday, March 25

  I have cut the telephone cord. I have no wish to be continually disturbed by the idiotic inspector just as the mysterious hour arrives.

  God. Why did I write that? Not a word of it is true. It is as if someone else were directing my pen.

  But I want to . . . want to . . . to write the truth here . . . though it is costing me great effort. But I want to . . . once more . . . do what I want.

  I have cut the telephone cord . . . ah . . .

  Because I had to . . . there it is. Had to . . .

  We stood at our windows this morning and played the game, which is now different from what it was yesterday. Clarimonda makes a movement and I resist it for as long as I can. Then I give in and do what she wants without further struggle. I can hardly express what a joy it is to be so conquered; to surrender entirely to her will.

  We played. All at once, she stood up and walked back into her room, where I could not see her; she was so engulfed by the dark. Then she came back with a desk telephone, like mine, in her hands. She smiled and set the telephone on the window sill, after which she took a knife and cut the cord. Then I carried my telephone to the window where I cut the cord. After that, I returned my phone to its place.

  That’s how it happened . . .

  I sit at my desk where I have been drinking tea the servant brought me. He has come for the empty teapot, and I ask him for the time, since my watch isn’t running properly. He says it is five fifteen. Five fifteen . . .

  I know that if I look out of my window, Clarimonda will be there making a gesture that I will have to imitate. I will look just the same. Clarimonda is there, smiling. If only I could turn my eyes away from hers.